Just gonna reiterate my belief that the people who would refuse to let a C Grade ref ref their relatively unimportant matches under a challenge system is a person who wouldn't let a C Grade ref ref their matches now much of the time anyway. Lots of folks already hand pick their referees when they can basically boss their referee around. I don't expect those people to be okay with any sort of system that cracks down on how battlers can treat their refs, and honestly I'm not sure we should even care if they do. They have maximum leverage right now and only use refs they've deemed acceptable, so why would we cater the new rules to them?

Crys - Today at 2:29 PM
hey if we're reworking asb
can we bring back breeding
ooo
i have an idea
Kinny - Today at 2:30 PM
crys no

Crys' Attractive Breeding Proposal

And so here I am. Anywho, I have a rough draft to present to you all today. It should be a refreshing change of pace from the ref and system discussions. We've been so absorbed in that stuff, we haven't really talked about other things. Like, say realistic, contests, or, as I'm trying, to reintroduce breeding.

Righto so before I forget, I'm piggybacking MMS' system for this proposal, as it was the first one i saw, but it could really work into any of the other ones probably. The nature of the breeding system is more of a side thing than a main mechanic, so it can be stretched and thinned if needed. Anywho so I think the first thing to address is, of course, how it works. Or, how I roughly think it should work. This is a suggestion thread!

The Breeding Process

Attract mid battle to have sexy fun times isn't going to be a thing this time around. That detracts from the overall playing experience, and serves only really as a meme. Thus, it's getting tossed in favor of a thread based system similar to Hidden Powers. In this thread, two Pokemon [REDACTED] each other until they [REDACTED], and the zygote gets impregnated. That's the short, raunchy summary, anyway.

In order to breed Pokemon, a thread post is made by the inquiring party in the designated "Breeding" thread, in which they select two Pokemon to breed, the desired offspring, as well as paying an SP fee upfront. If applicable, they may also select a "special move" (and the mon from which it's from) to be carried down to the offspring. These Pokemon can either be from one player's squad, or two people can put forth one Pokemon each, with the confirmation of both parties. If there are two parties involved in a breeding, the SP cost is split between the two. In order for an egg to be produced, there must be a few conditions met, first of which being one male and one female between the two Pokemon, or a Ditto as substitute. In the special case of a genderless Pokemon, such as Rotom, a Ditto must function as the second Pokemon in order for an egg to be produced. Secondly, the two Pokemon must either share an egg group, or be similar enough to conceivably reproduce, at discretion of the Breeding Approver. Similarly, Pokemon sigged with another type, or other characteristics, may be able to breed with other Pokemon they might not be able to, once again at the Breeding Approver's discretion. For example, a Torkoal sigged to be Water/Fire typed would quite likely be able to breed with a Carracosta, a Pokemon that is not in its egg group. Once the post has been submitted, and overlooked by a Breeding Approver, the post will either be edited with an Approved stamp or a Rejected stamp. If the post is approved, great! Your egg is good to go, and the participant(s) receive their egg in a special egg slot. This slot is a temporary slot, only to be held by the hatched Pokemon. If you drop it, the slot goes as well, until you purchase another breeding to replace it. The egg will hatch after two completed matches from the date of the Approved time stamp, and you're free to level up and sig the Pokemon like any other. If the post is Rejected however, the SP cost is refunded, and you are free to try again after forty-eight hours. It is important to note however that once a post has been edited by an Approver, you may not edit it!

So, you might be wondering, why breed at all? Well first off, under Snorby's system, slots are locked under Trainer Levels, making obtaining new ones a TP grind. Breeding allows you to obtain some extra slots along the way using your SP, but at a lesser extent compared to the old purchased slots and the 200+ mon squads those caused. Secondly, and IMO more excitingly, breeding allows you to add a special move to your Pokemon signature free (though obviously a move obtained from breeding might affect certain signatures getting approved on that mon, at the discretion of the Sig LO.) This can allow for some fun and pretty wacky mons! For example, the Torkoal baby from the previous example could potentially pick up Surf from the parent Carracosta, a move it normally cannot learn! If you're a smart and persistent chain breeder, you could eventually end up with a move on a mon you might not be otherwise be able to get, even via normal breeding! Assuming it gets approved, of course. For example, a bred Snorlax with Draco Meteor could possibly fly depending on the chaining, but keep in mind if your Snorlax already has Draco Meteor when you go to sig it, it may impact the kind of sig you can obtain on the Snorlax.

Things to Think About

How many bred slots will you be limited to? Will they increase with TL?

What about crazy egg group pairs, like Skitty and Wailord?

Should Smeargle moves pass on via breeding?

How impactful would this be upon the ASB scene?

Would breeding be a fun mechanic to reintroduce, or should it stay a relic of the past?

How many sexual innuendos did you catch?

How do we potentially include things such as Incenses or breeding items?

Should mons potentially be able to obtain more than one "special" egg move?

Honestly I love this. It provides an SP sink I think people would actually use, makes moves with low distribution and the mon that learn them more viable, and honestly really isn't as far out as it looks on paper. As it stands you can get most moves on your mon through sigs, and honestly this is just a more fun and creative way of doing that. Props on the good idea, Crys c;

Definitely should be a limit of one move given to the offspring though. Maybe two but any more than that is definitely too much imo. Stuff like Smeargle and what moves can/can't be passed needs to be looked at but are easily surmountable issues.

Ok trying to keep this going. Let's talk about progression. At the moment, I am leaning towards largely decoupling acquisitions from trainer levels so I am going to assume that that is not an issue (if we need to revisit that we can later).

1) How do we want to have progression be codified in the game? Trainer levels? Getting neat stuff? A combination? Some other system?

2) How fast do we want people to progress? Should it scale somehow?

3) How are we going to gauge progression? Point thresholds? Certain milestones?

4) Is there an endpoint to the progression?

4a) If so, do we have some sort of post-game? What might that look like? How do we keep interest after the progression scheme ends?

Ok trying to keep this going. Let's talk about progression. At the moment, I am leaning towards largely decoupling acquisitions from trainer levels so I am going to assume that that is not an issue (if we need to revisit that we can later).

1) How do we want to have progression be codified in the game? Trainer levels? Getting neat stuff? A combination? Some other system?

2) How fast do we want people to progress? Should it scale somehow?

3) How are we going to gauge progression? Point thresholds? Certain milestones?

4) Is there an endpoint to the progression?

4a) If so, do we have some sort of post-game? What might that look like? How do we keep interest after the progression scheme ends?

1) A Combination thereof. I think keeping the TL system is going to be the best way to mete out the neat stuff that comes with progression.

2) It should definitely scale, especially if we want to gate any mon at all behind TLs like I know some people have advocated for. You should be able to get any Pokemon you want, if not right away (which I personally like best), certainly within the first couple months of play. I think we've said we're not doing acquisition levels so if we were gonna gate stuff behind TLs the way we'd be doing that is prohibitively high costs on certain Pokemon but I digress.

My ideal for this would be fast progressions through TL3 to keep people interested, then have things slow down a bit for TLs 4 and 5 before we get to TL6 and higher where those really become long-term goals more than anything else (so pretty much like what we have now).

3) A mix of both, I think. We can add milestones to reqs for later TLs as those slow down progression. First few TLs can be straight point thresholds, then maybe throw in something like a Gym Badge requirement, then when you're getting to the really elite levels make things based on win %, Glicko or rank. Maybe like, "to go from TL6 to TL7 you must have been at or above X Glicko amount while you were TL6."

4) Well, hitting the highest TL (and being #1 in the trainer rankings) probably. But that's not something a lot of people are gonna do imo.

4a) I really don't think people are gonna be getting to max TL easily here, but we could have some sort of ultimate challenge that you get access to if you hit the highest TL I suppose. There's lots of routes we could go with this, but I think all the coolest ones involve legendaries. Maybe you fight the Elite Four again and they have buffed squads (maybe their mon get intrinsic boosts like Legends or Uplevels do), and once you beat them there's some sort of ultimate legend challenge where you face a gauntlet of legendaries (possibly having trios do triple battles, duos double battles, etc if we want to make it really crazy and fun) where you fight until you lose and then get to keep any legendary you beat. Before it's asked no I don't think this devalues normal legend challenges that much because it's gonna be really, really hard to ever get to the point where you're actually doing that challenge.

Ok trying to keep this going. Let's talk about progression. At the moment, I am leaning towards largely decoupling acquisitions from trainer levels so I am going to assume that that is not an issue (if we need to revisit that we can later).

1) How do we want to have progression be codified in the game? Trainer levels? Getting neat stuff? A combination? Some other system?

2) How fast do we want people to progress? Should it scale somehow?

3) How are we going to gauge progression? Point thresholds? Certain milestones?

4) Is there an endpoint to the progression?

4a) If so, do we have some sort of post-game? What might that look like? How do we keep interest after the progression scheme ends?

1) A combination of these is probably the best bet we have at the moment; I don't personally have any better suggestions. Having said that, I'd be open to potentially hearing some.

2) It should absolutely scale. IMO, the first few levels should be relatively quick (The first three TL's in my system should take no longer than a year to progress through). After that, things can be slowed down significantly.

3) Perhaps a combination here as well, but I'd like to add in that progression and reffing should be decoupled. (That is, no reffing/SP requirement to go up in TL. This was really just a detractor for some people.)

4) There probably isn't a good way around this.

4a) There certainly should be some sort of post game to keep people interested, but I'm not sure what form it should be in. I'll try to think about this one more today.

Honestly that's a really specific question when we haven't fleshed out what benefits TL's will give, and how quickly they will be progressed through. It seems a bit premature to try to nail down a number on those yet.I think it will be dependent on how we decide to distribute functions/features to different stages of progression.

Ok trying to keep this going. Let's talk about progression. At the moment, I am leaning towards largely decoupling acquisitions from trainer levels so I am going to assume that that is not an issue (if we need to revisit that we can later).

1) How do we want to have progression be codified in the game? Trainer levels? Getting neat stuff? A combination? Some other system?

2) How fast do we want people to progress? Should it scale somehow?

3) How are we going to gauge progression? Point thresholds? Certain milestones?

4) Is there an endpoint to the progression?

4a) If so, do we have some sort of post-game? What might that look like? How do we keep interest after the progression scheme ends?

Time for me to contribute my two cents!

1) A combination would be nice. Speaking as someone who's never passed TL1, trust me: I could use some added incentives.

2) Scale. TL2 feels like but a dream to me currently.

3) A combo here as well, though I'd personally like to see milestones implemented--the more realistic, the better. (At least at early levels.)

4) I always kind of thought TL7 was the endpoint...

4a) ...one that generally seemed to end the individual's PASBL career. Hence, a post-game should be considered for retention purposes maybe? Lol idk.

Oh my, I haven't poked around here in a loooong time, have I? I doubt anybody remember/misses me, but I thought I might as well pop by to contribute a little! (Not like I even have a say in ANYTHING that goes on. But still...) Now, about those questions...

1) How do we want to have progression be codified in the game? Trainer levels? Getting neat stuff? A combination? Some other system?
I'd love to see a combination of that, as well as new things added from time to time that will keep folks motivated enough to stay, even in the least favorable of times.

2) How fast do we want people to progress? Should it scale somehow?
Actually, let folks advance in the lower levels (TLS 1-2) quicker than usual, and then slow it down fairly so during 3 and 4 (Because to be honest, that's where things get fun!). By the time (and if) they reach Level 5, it's will be a tough, but worthwhile grind any further. That's just an idea, i dunno how well that would work...

3) How are we going to gauge progression? Point thresholds? Certain milestones?
That, I dunno to be honest. But I think every level-up should be a milestone. And I don't think there should be a limit to how many points one can earn, you can never have too many slots for extra pokemon or an item you've been meaning to get!

4) Is there an endpoint to the progression?
There doesn't have to be! Even if the Trainer has reached the top level and has all the pokemon they could ask for, perhaps there's a way to allow them to keep at it despite the prestige. Like special items/battles only they can obtain/participate in?

1) How do we want to have progression be codified in the game? Trainer levels? Getting neat stuff? A combination? Some other system?

The way I see it, we have 2 angles for this one. First one is the competitive game environment, where you basically want people to have access to the strongest creatures after a very reasonable period of time so they can participate in high level play.

The second one is the Anime Trainer route, where you instead progress as a person with a significantly weaker team of favorites.

I don't see any reason they can't coexist, but it would probably be more the second with an allowance for the first if you battle enough.

Quote:

2) How fast do we want people to progress? Should it scale somehow?

When it comes to progression, I want people to never feel like they stalled out. They should feel like there's something they can reach for and that their progression through the system feels quick and rewarding. My suggestion had TLs get progressively more challenging by pitting the community against itself, ex. to reach TL7, you had to beat 8 Gym leaders.

I don't think it should take more than a month or two to get the "full experience," where you are Part of The Community and have enough clout to use your Signature Pokemon Team. Any longer and you're looking at people doing what Shuckle did, which was 20 matches with a 20% winrate, never get above TL1, get super upset about it, never get to play with the fun stuff, and stop contributing entirely.

Quote:

3) How are we going to gauge progression? Point thresholds? Certain milestones?

I like TLs and TP. I suggested in my doc that we might simply grant your selection of the shop upon reaching various point thresholds, so that you don't have to track TP or SP like currency. I don't really like the idea of tracking and spending currency, because it's a lot of extra administrative work for players to link and cross-reference and keep track of what they spent and what they have. To me, one number is fine, and that number should be ever-increasing.

Quote:

4) Is there an endpoint to the progression?

4a) If so, do we have some sort of post-game? What might that look like? How do we keep interest after the progression scheme ends?

Duh, to be the very best like no one ever was.

I think ASB's endgame is pretty fulfilling as it is. Honestly people tend to grow out of it at that point anyway. Kush was going for the completionist dream by making a squad with every pokemon ever in it before he left, many people become GLs or run tournaments, you have legends available for capture, and there's reffing you can do if you're bored and experienced.

People tend to stay for the community so I don't see a problem with just letting people figure out what they want to do within the system. The competitive aspect of the game means you'll never run out of opponents, after all.

I'm going to scour the proposals and the entirety of the thread in a bit but that's clearly going to take time because this is all a bit of an unmitigated shitshow, so firs answering Jeri's questions to get a baseline on how I feel about things. Answers to things in bold because I can't be bothered with quote tags.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerichi

Ok let's keep this discussion moving.

I'm not really fit to comment on much else re: full proposals but I like the idea of a point system for Pokémon acquisitions/etc. so let's elaborate on that.

The system I had in mind would basically be similar to what was described by a few people all mashed up - have an allotment of points you can spend on a set of Pokémon, all of whom have values assigned to their base forms. I think this would also help with the balance issue as we could have battles also be restricted through these point values, so you can set a value that will make it tough (or even impossible?) to bring your crushy mon without sacrificing the rest of your team.

This is not too different from my own thought process on the matter, though I'll go into more detail on that later.

Questions for you:

1) What criteria should be used to assign values to mon? Keep in mind, if we're going to do this, I'd like to see evolution take at least minimal effort to keep NFEs somewhat relevant.

The way we handle Acquisition Levels now works fairly well, though I recommend stretching it to 10 levels to allow things to be a bit easier.

2) Relatedly, how should evos work?

Same way, Acquisition Levels are required, spend squad points to have the 'mon, but you have to have them participate in battles in order to evolve. I'm thinking instead of a battle equaling a level we make it two battles to evolve (one if used in the actual battle), no spending SP on this, you have to know how a 'mon works in order to use the evo. This kinda helps with the fact that we'd move slightly away from "Joe Newb can't own a Charizard."

3) How much do we want to have to make people sink into new Pokémon? Do they have to buy a slot and then a Pokémon to fill it? Can they just buy 100 Caterpies if they can afford it?

I think we should still keeps slots as is, but each slot be worth an amount of points equal to your TL, that way if you go up in TL it means easier access to higher level things but you can still technically access whatever at lower levels if you manage your squad around that thought.

4) How variable do we want to make the point rankings? 1-10? 1-100? How much nuance do we want to show?

Just 1-10, that way they match up with TLs if we decide to stretch them that far.

5) Will point values be adjustable? How? When? I know that I don't want to fight over a single Pokémon's value for 10 pages, but I also know mistakes can be made or Pokémon can be reanalyzed as useful.

I'd suggest yearly evaluations on point values, it'd be pretty simple and if we simply stretch things from our current system things will fall pretty well into place anyway.

6) Do we want to try to balance clusters of Pokémon with similar values against each other or balance broadly?

I'd argue more broadly, allow people to pick and choose things since we shouldn't be making it so you have to be Trainer Level X to access Point Value Y. Further balancing is pretty well handled by Sigs.

I might have more questions later but this is a good start.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerichi

Ok, I'm reasonably satisfied with what's been proposed so far. I like the idea of a point system where you buy individual mon with whatever currency you have and then matches are balanced by point limits in the matches. Let's assume that system (or something similar) going forward. I also like the idea of TLs as sort of a progression thing; maybe we still tie Legend Challenges and other things that might be good to lock away to those.

For the record I am 110% not okay with matches being balanced by point values. It's just equiall with a different name and frankly we should be moving away from the system. Let people who want to play with big boy toys play with them, if they are repeatedly shitting on people who bring less trumped up squad they'll earn a bad reputation and manage themselves a bit better. This is one of those few moments where the community and cult of personality actually should be what we fall onto.

I think the next problem to tackle is reffing and reffing accessibility. I know we've already begun working on that to some extent and the suggestions I've seen (FAQs, coaching, etc.) are all good but I'd like to expand. A few more questions:

1) What specifically about reffing is most unappealing that discourages you from reffing?

Personally I just find 95% of battles incredibly dull. Type spam this, turret that, hyper aggro nonsense. This'll be worked out a bit better with changes to attack descripts.

2) What is the hardest thing to learn about reffing?

Move interactions, largely, but again fixable with changes to attack descripts. Beyond that, the hardest thing is always the "show, don't tell" when it comes to health, energy, etc. And this is just culture that we need to be able to gently sway refs in the right direction instead of scolding for heading in the wrong one.

3) What could be simplified without detracting from fun/interest?

Again we have move interactions, but also probably energy and exhaustion. But the latter is a bit of a walking on eggshells scenario as we do want people to have some discretion and not have things quoted at them every other round.

4) What incentives would you like to see tied to reffing?

Reffing incentives are frankly fine though I might argue that we should have SP earnable throughout the battle. A simple system would be earn an SP when a 'mon gets KO'd (when it'd put that trainer in the lead, so you get SP when it becomes 1-0 or 3-2 but not when it's now a 2-2 tie or the trainer is still losing 2-4) and then get all the bonus SP at the actual end of the match. Beyond that I do think some larger activities such as tourneys, GMs, and perhaps even Legend matches should be reffing gated. If you're not pulling at least some weight in the League, you're not allowed to further drag down fun events.

I'm sure there are other questions to be asked but these feel like the most basic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerichi

Ok trying to keep this going. Let's talk about progression. At the moment, I am leaning towards largely decoupling acquisitions from trainer levels so I am going to assume that that is not an issue (if we need to revisit that we can later).

1) How do we want to have progression be codified in the game? Trainer levels? Getting neat stuff? A combination? Some other system?

Our current progression is fine, it's the fact that 'mon are locked behind TLs that's really the problem. We give rewards of slots even if you don't move up in TL, which is great, and moving up in and of itself is frankly fantastic as is. If we remove the lock of 'mon behind TL by just making all 'mon available through a point system we'll be fine here.

2) How fast do we want people to progress? Should it scale somehow?

Current progression is fine for the average player but given our endgame takes like 2-3 years if you're powering through it I once again push for us to move to 10 TLs to try to expand that to more of a 5-6 years for people who are determined to keep climbing.

3) How are we going to gauge progression? Point thresholds? Certain milestones?

Again, current progression is fine. We might want to change the thresholds ever so slightly because some of them do flat out require you to have a high skill level which frankly that should come from climbing, not be a requirement of it.

4) Is there an endpoint to the progression?

Current endgame is TL7 because you literally have access to whatever you want. A change to a point system and expanding the levels really makes it so there's less of an endgame and more of a personal point for any given trainer as to where they are able to have whatever they want. For some people that may be TL5, for some it could be TL10, and for some TL3, but the important point is that it's their personal goal and thus can fluctuate beyond "I'm at the top now, guess all I have left to do is own literally everything."

4a) If so, do we have some sort of post-game? What might that look like? How do we keep interest after the progression scheme ends?

See above because I rambled a bit but the long and short of it is to allow people to decide their own endgame, and from there we can create new things every here and again (note create, not change), thus giving potential new goals for anyone that might be interested without really alienating those that might not be.

Was directly asked my thoughts on this so I guess I'll start here for now...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crys

Crys' Attractive Breeding Proposal

And so here I am. Anywho, I have a rough draft to present to you all today. It should be a refreshing change of pace from the ref and system discussions. We've been so absorbed in that stuff, we haven't really talked about other things. Like, say realistic, contests, or, as I'm trying, to reintroduce breeding.

Righto so before I forget, I'm piggybacking MMS' system for this proposal, as it was the first one i saw, but it could really work into any of the other ones probably. The nature of the breeding system is more of a side thing than a main mechanic, so it can be stretched and thinned if needed. Anywho so I think the first thing to address is, of course, how it works. Or, how I roughly think it should work. This is a suggestion thread!

The Breeding Process

Attract mid battle to have sexy fun times isn't going to be a thing this time around. That detracts from the overall playing experience, and serves only really as a meme. Thus, it's getting tossed in favor of a thread based system similar to Hidden Powers. In this thread, two Pokemon [REDACTED] each other until they [REDACTED], and the zygote gets impregnated. That's the short, raunchy summary, anyway.

In order to breed Pokemon, a thread post is made by the inquiring party in the designated "Breeding" thread, in which they select two Pokemon to breed, the desired offspring, as well as paying an SP fee upfront. If applicable, they may also select a "special move" (and the mon from which it's from) to be carried down to the offspring. These Pokemon can either be from one player's squad, or two people can put forth one Pokemon each, with the confirmation of both parties. If there are two parties involved in a breeding, the SP cost is split between the two. In order for an egg to be produced, there must be a few conditions met, first of which being one male and one female between the two Pokemon, or a Ditto as substitute. In the special case of a genderless Pokemon, such as Rotom, a Ditto must function as the second Pokemon in order for an egg to be produced. Secondly, the two Pokemon must either share an egg group, or be similar enough to conceivably reproduce, at discretion of the Breeding Approver. Similarly, Pokemon sigged with another type, or other characteristics, may be able to breed with other Pokemon they might not be able to, once again at the Breeding Approver's discretion. For example, a Torkoal sigged to be Water/Fire typed would quite likely be able to breed with a Carracosta, a Pokemon that is not in its egg group. Once the post has been submitted, and overlooked by a Breeding Approver, the post will either be edited with an Approved stamp or a Rejected stamp. If the post is approved, great! Your egg is good to go, and the participant(s) receive their egg in a special egg slot. This slot is a temporary slot, only to be held by the hatched Pokemon. If you drop it, the slot goes as well, until you purchase another breeding to replace it. The egg will hatch after two completed matches from the date of the Approved time stamp, and you're free to level up and sig the Pokemon like any other. If the post is Rejected however, the SP cost is refunded, and you are free to try again after forty-eight hours. It is important to note however that once a post has been edited by an Approver, you may not edit it!

So, you might be wondering, why breed at all? Well first off, under Snorby's system, slots are locked under Trainer Levels, making obtaining new ones a TP grind. Breeding allows you to obtain some extra slots along the way using your SP, but at a lesser extent compared to the old purchased slots and the 200+ mon squads those caused. Secondly, and IMO more excitingly, breeding allows you to add a special move to your Pokemon signature free (though obviously a move obtained from breeding might affect certain signatures getting approved on that mon, at the discretion of the Sig LO.) This can allow for some fun and pretty wacky mons! For example, the Torkoal baby from the previous example could potentially pick up Surf from the parent Carracosta, a move it normally cannot learn! If you're a smart and persistent chain breeder, you could eventually end up with a move on a mon you might not be otherwise be able to get, even via normal breeding! Assuming it gets approved, of course. For example, a bred Snorlax with Draco Meteor could possibly fly depending on the chaining, but keep in mind if your Snorlax already has Draco Meteor when you go to sig it, it may impact the kind of sig you can obtain on the Snorlax.

Things to Think About

How many bred slots will you be limited to? Will they increase with TL?

What about crazy egg group pairs, like Skitty and Wailord?

Should Smeargle moves pass on via breeding?

How impactful would this be upon the ASB scene?

Would breeding be a fun mechanic to reintroduce, or should it stay a relic of the past?

How many sexual innuendos did you catch?

How do we potentially include things such as Incenses or breeding items?

Should mons potentially be able to obtain more than one "special" egg move?

What do you think about this proposition?

In addition, do you have any suggestions or comments?

And a quick c/p of my response on Discord for those that would otherwise not get to see it.

Sniz - Today at 5:34 PM
Right so I just gave it a read proper and while it wouldn't be the absolute worst idea in a system with slots locked by TL (which I hate as a mere concept), it serves little to no purpose in a more open system, is basically pulling towards FB shop simulator which everyone hates, requires YET MORE work from people that would be either LOs or LO approved for basically the ability to pass down a single move, and all of this can be done better with sigs and crap stuck in the bio.
Creative though it may be, there's no actual purpose to it other than "this would be a fun little thing" and it's just a hamper on already strained resources.
So I'm putting my foot firmly in the "fuck that noise" camp for now until everything else gets worked out, though honestly if we somehow end up without strained resources down the line I'd not be fussed to reconsider my position then.

This thread will close in 72 hours. That means everybody's got about three days to give their final thoughts on what's been said and make any last minute proposals before the LOs move on to making some decisions.

This is the last chance for discussion before we close the doors and get to work. Don't waste it, and if you don't use it don't come complaining to us if you didn't get to say your piece. This thread's been open for over a month now.

Right so, there's no way to really put this without sounding a little blunt on the matter so I'll just state it. All of the proposals thus far are incredibly extreme and very few of them really keep to the roots of ASB while addressing the issues in a way that isn't going to overly alienate anyone. That said, there are definitely good ideas spread among them, and while I was going to reply to everything with my thoughts most of the ideas have been sifted through already, so I don't think a ten page essay is really necessary at this point.

That said, I've finally written up my little proposal on the matter, so feel free to give it a read.

So one of the biggest issues we have with attracting newer players as well as retaining players once they start has always been the "We shouldn't let Joe Newb play with a Charizard" policy. And while it is at least true that people should get the basics down before they really get the big boy toys, that doesn't mean they should have to wait upwards of a year to even think about accessing them. My primary proposal here is a something of a twist on some things that have already been brought up that I've been talking about for a while and might have actually sparked some of those ideas. Squad points. Now what this would mean is basically that Acquisition Levels would not be directly tied to Trainer Levels, rather they would be designated point values for any given Pokemon. These point values would determine what Pokemon you could fit into your squad, effectively. For this, the amount of squad points you have with which to pick Pokemon would be equal to the number of squad slots you have times your Trainer Level. So Joe Newb just starting out at TL1 would have 17 squad points as he has 17 squad slots, whereas some TL3 trainer with 30 squad slots would have 90 points to spend as they please. This allows for both the ability to have any (non-Legend) Pokemon you want early on if you want to cripple the rest of your squad, while still making Trainer Levels matter for the purpose of progression and unlocking better potential for your squad. Beyond that, even those who for whatever reason can't move up in TL would eventually be able to have better and better squads simply by attaining more squad slots, though it would be a bit slower to do so, so long as we keep our current SP and TP system (more on that in a bit). Ultimately, if we go this route, I suggest opening both Trainer Levels and Acquisition Levels up to 10, and spreading the Acquisition Levels out appropriately. Trainer Levels going up would primarily be due to opening up a bit more end game as well as the fact that frankly TL7 is just an ugly number let's be honest here... there's also just no real reason to limit things when higher end game means higher vet retention. But moving past that and finishing up my point here, all Pokemon added would start at lowest evolution. Yes, that means baby if applicable. From there, there wouldn't necessarily be leveling up, as I really want to move away from levels (more on that in just a second), so much as just require battles in order to evolve. Specifically, they would need squadded in two battles to evolve or used in one, no SP spending allowed, and they would have to do so while in that evolutionary stage. This means that the most effective way to fully evolve you're 'mon is to actually use them, and enforces the idea that you should know your basics before being able to properly play with big boy toys. So this means that Joe Newb who wants a Charizard can have one, he's just have to wait anywhere between two to four battles depending on if he actually uses Charmander/Charmeleon in the duration.

Equilevel, Equiall, and Battle Balancing

So I've stated this before but let's just be honest... there's literally no way to properly balance a battle system without putting it into practice at least a little bit first. What I suggest here is scrapping Equilevel and Equiall entirely, as they literally just are anti-fun for a lot of reasons. Primarily they just end up getting used as ways to keep people who in the past have earned their big and nasties from well... using them ever. But more importantly, in a points based system they devalue basically the entirety of carefully spending your points. Now, a few people have suggested the ability to implement point totals for battles but... same problem. Joe Newb can't really have his Charizard if it costs say 6 points and every single early battle is 10 points or less, so now his squad is a little crippled for nothing. And yes, scrapping these mechanics basically means we fend for ourselves for a bit on the matter, but we do have to trust the community will police themselves at least for a little while while the entirety of the system has freshly changed and until it's actually clear as to what we need to do here.

Motivation and Pulling Weight

Look as it currently stands reffing and battling both can be a bit of a slog. Most people seem to agree that this is heavily due to things having somehow getting less standardized over the years in favor of discretion and what have you. To that degree we have already made a lot of steps in the right direction by properly beginning to standardize things, but that's not going to fix motivation properly. As such what I propose to help fix this is essentially something of more instant gratification of things. Basically, if a Pokemon is KO'd, it means points, and it means points right then and there. If a battler KOs a 'mon, they get the 1 TP for it right there and then, which doesn't seem like much but when you're just oh so close to another 50 TP slot and all your matches are 5v5s or the like, it can add up for you. Similarly the ref would also get 1 SP then and there, provided it would be a KO that would be putting a trainer forward and not one that only causes tying or closing a gap. So if a trainer gets a KO that causes them to be up 2-1 in a 3v3 match, for instance, they'd earn their second TP so far that match, while the ref would earn their second SP so far that match, and all bonuses would be granted at the end, meaning when that third KO happens the winning trainer gets their third TP, as well as the 3 bonus TP and 3 KOs for winning and any bonuses for fast ordering, and the ref gets their third SP, as well as any bonus SP for speedy reffing, reffing special matches, etc. Now while I know this isn't a perfect solution, I think it's at least a step in the right direction and we can continue to adjust things from there.

Gyms and Elite Four

There's been a lot of talk on these subjects but my point of view basically boils down to what will prevent things from getting overly confusing for literally everyone involved. For the Elite Four that means picking a group and sticking with them for the calendar year, after which point they can be reviewed for future challenges, while all ongoing challenges continue to use that set of Elite Four members (which would remain documented until all challenges that started that year have finished). The only exception to this would be if there is a new Champion that was one of the Elite Four members that calendar year, at which point the review would happen then instead of at the rollover of the year, with the year rollover possibly being skipped if the review happens close enough to it. Challenges would of course remain using that old set. But this is all fairly obvious and we need to address the elephant in the room here... activity levels. If an Elite Four member fails to remain active in their matches they will be removed from the position, fairly obviously. All ongoing challenges will continue as normal, immediately ending matches involving that Elite Four member for the time being. Once all matches with active Elite Four members have ended, the trainer will be allowed to replace two Pokemon on their initial squad for each Elite Four member that had gone inactive (so 2 if 1, 4 if 2, 6 if 3/4), and will continue their challenge with whoever is now in the active Elite Four until they have finished four battles properly. If there are no active Elite Four members that the trainer has not already beaten, a review will be done then as opposed to the end of the year (same rules as with Champion replacement review apply). This should cover basically all gaps that can form.

Gym Leaders... honestly we've moved in the right direction here by relaxing entry on the matter a fair bit, though I might argue it's still a little strict. Obviously if a GL is deemed inactive in their matches they will be replaced. As for the topic of GTs... leave them as-is. A lot of Gym Leaders and veteran trainers started out as GTs, and really the best thing we could really do here is find a proper way to incentivize a GL adding GTs, possibly a reward of sorts if they have a GT stick around without being fired for poor w/l until a certain TL or becoming a GL of their own.

Sigs

Why am I even discussing this? I know I'm a bit biased but really I think most of the community can agree that as is sigs are at the best place they've been in a long while. I would like to state that we really should sit down proper and review the sig guidelines a bit once the attack descriptions and species characteristics are overhauled so we know where we stand on what, though.

SP: Burn the Kush-e-Mart

No. Seriously. Burn the Kush Pokemart thread to the ground. It's horribly out of date in some places and honestly there's just a lot of garbage in there that doesn't need to exist. A lot of things like the small percentage boost tokens spring most immediately to mind, especially as they really should be replaced with actual type tokens proper which should be sold year round with the stipulation of one per type per trainer. Now with that said, there are a lot of things that I'm against keeping and a lot of things I really think that we should keep here, as well as the fact that honestly some things could be further created, but this is all something that I really think we should back burner at least for now. In a perfect rework we shouldn't be needing to change SP too heavily, it just shouldn't be necessary.

Activity, Disqualification, and Events

Look, I really don't think the big issue we have with activity is due to our DQ system. Frankly, our system is perfectly fine, the problem is people don't enforce it because, well, they don't want to be the bad guy. Really here the biggest issue is that it all comes down to the opposing trainer, and that really shouldn't be the case. If the opposing trainer isn't going to call DQ, the ref should be setting things into motion as per the guidelines we have. There's no real need to change the system as a whole here, so much as the culture. And there's no real easy way to do that. Incentivizing DQ would result in people dropping it the split second it's crossed any and every time, which is also something of a problem as exceptions should be made every now and again. Instead I push that if someone is DQ'd and argues the matter, they should have points docked. This really just boils down to punishing problem members, and it's just backing up the strong words of "I'll dock your points" that have been uttered a fair number of times over the years with a proper hardline rule on the matter. This both punishes the guilty party for making those that enforce the DQ feel bad while also putting out the serious statement to those that might be afraid of doing so that dropping the DQ is perfectly okay, and something that just needs to be done sometimes. But to hopefully prevent that from becoming a problem in the first place... all events, whether it be tournaments, contests, or Grand Melees, should not allow entry to those who have not ordered in a match within the past month as well as those who have in the past month gone over a DQ time without a TA. Does this mean a little more work on the part of event organizers to make sure people actually qualify? Yes, but I think it'll work well for activity provided we make sure there are actually events to look forward to regularly.

Community Expansion

Okay I'll be honest here... this is not my strong suit and I've drawn a bit of a blank on this one for quite some time. In fact, it's the primary delay for this entire proposal. The recent announcement that FB could be expanding back to BMG is good news, as it means potentially more people coming to UPN and discovering ASB proper, but more importantly, it means we might be able to get a foothold over there ourselves if we really want to and try, but it would mean competition with their battling RP of sorts. Perhaps wiser would be to get the ASB page on Bulbapedia... actually updated, and see if we can get it as a featured page as favor or something. Outside of that, I've honestly got nothing so defer to some others on this.

Resetting

I'll be honest... I really don't think it's necessary to do a full reset. Heck, if done properly and we give everyone enough time to adjust their squads to the changes once put forward, there's not really a reason to even do a partial one. The ASB has handled large scale changes in the past and kept chugging along, and while this change may look to be the largest we've ever seen and may ever see, that's still no reason in my mind to potentially alienate people by taking away everything they've earned over the years, especially when it comes to things that were hard fought for such as Badges or Legends.

...I think I've covered everything but I could be wrong. Nitpick away I suppose.

Your acquisitions system seems fine on paper but it really doesn't help with how obscene squad sizes are on honestly just makes the advantage an obscene squad size grants you all the more damning.

Totally fine with scrapping Equi.

Like the instant gratification stuff.

Definitely differ from you on Gyms/E4. Arbitrary timeframes are always messy and never followed in ASB. Skill can change a great deal within a year and fundamentally the Elite Four should be the best four non-champion battlers in the league. People get better very rapidly at times and the best can get worse even when they're nominally active enough to hold the position- rust accumulates if you're only doing the bare minimum.

Incentivizing GLs to have and keep GTs worries me because I think we might end up getting some underqualified GTs and moreover end up dicking over people who run certain types/themes. While my push to include GTs has that same flaw on the surface I'll argue its different because the GT is generally gonna be somebody who's fairly good and can therefore field a strong squad almost regardless of what type it is without being dicked over by the fact that they have to use 4 pre-evos or something.

Agree we should have a sit-down about Sigs. Though I will say just generally that I don't think sigs being better than ever before means much considering that sigs have been historically a trainwreck. I think it's low priority since sigs are largely ok right now but sigs being fine now isn't a good reason to completely ignore the thought of changing them around.

I really think taking the "DQ culture" out of the equation and making DQ's automatic is the best approach. You're right that if the culture was different our rules would work fine, but that doesn't mean we should change the entrenched culture rather than just eliminate the effect the culture has. That's a whole lot of ultimately unnecessary work.

Also I'm already seeing your plan to change culture crashing and burning because you immediately qualify your suggestion with "there's obviously gonna be exceptions to the rule". While that's fundamentally true- we aren't gonna DQ people because of something drastic happening in their real life they had no control over- that's exactly the common knowledge that helps perpetuate the culture we have now. LOs can make exceptions as they see fit to the automatic DQ rule and that'll be that.

I'm not in tune with FB so good to hear BMG might provide us opportunities. I'm happy to see if we can get the ASB Bulbapedia page spruced up. Obviously we need to do more than just this but what's there is good.

With regards to resetting... I again want to point out that we have basically no member base as it is. I'm sorry but at the end of the day I'd lose half of our less than a dozen members we have right now if it meant another half dozen people decide to join ASB because of it. And I think seeing the impossibly difficult to handle monster squads would deter new folks from joining, especially since we've basically only got people with those kinds of squads left. Not really many TL1-3 folks floating around these days. I think some level of reset would be healthy for the game and help us attract new members. The couple of people who decide to quit playing over it likely wouldnt make or break the ASB in such a way that they'd outweigh the benefits unless one of them is named Jerichi.

See on the one hand I'd love to be able to say I'm fine with implementing a cap on squad size per Trainer Level or something but... I'm really not. Gotta Catch 'Em All etc. At a certain point, no matter how it's sliced, the only endgame there really is, is the ability to keep collecting. I'm sure some compromise can be made there but that's just my barebones thoughts on the matter.

As for Gyms and E4... as much as I'd like to agree that things should be able to change more fluidly, it's just one of those things that will only ever look good on paper. Regularly changing the E4 throughout the year means just that many more challenges to keep track of who is supposed to battle who, what trainers may need replaced due to inactivity, etc.

No offense on GTs but... we do technically have GT qualifications for a reason, though they've kinda gone by the wayside because reasons. As for themes and such, there's really no reason that a GL can't work out any given theme to host a couple of GTs. Heck even Eeveelution could probably manage it if an attempt was made. I'm personally just not really a fan of raising the bar of entry for GTs purely because frankly people should be given the opportunity to learn how Gym defenses work early so they can actively improve. Starting them off just below the level of the GL is kinda just a sad "sorry I'm the GL of the Gym you want bud" if the GL actually sticks around.

Agreed on backburnering sigs, it was just in there due to someone having brought it up in a proposal.

Automatic DQs are... kinda already written into the system. They're just not enforced in the areas where they are. So why would they be in the future if we spread them everywhere, is my point here, I suppose. Like unless LOs are literally going to monitor every single match for DQs it again boils down to culture to some degree.

As I've said with resetting, I'm fine with it if that's what we absolutely need to do (key word absolutely), but at the end of the day I'm much more not a fan of things being reset that people have worked well and truly hard over such as badges and Legends (and challenges). Especially the latter.